I don't know whether I am easily amazed or easily amused. This fact just simply floored me.

As we enjoy a cold holiday weekend with plenty of football and a lot of couch time, no doubt some of us will be sipping a libation or two. Some of us like beer, others like to mix it up just a bit.

 

There are certainly the classic mixers when it comes to enjoying Jack Daniels, Jim Beam, Wild Turkey or your other favorites. Most of us will mix with Coke, Sprite, 7-Up or a Diet Coke or Coke Zero. But did you know there is a popular soft drink that was created for the sole purpose of mixing with whiskey?

White Lightning, Moonshine or homemade liquor also has another nickname. That name is Mountain Dew. The same as the popular soft drink. Here is its unlikely story from regional bar mixer to big time soda pop.

Back in the 1930's soft drinks were more regional than national in distribution. For a lot of us in the south the RC Cola was popular. In Knoxville, Tennessee, the Hartman Brothers liked their soda pop too. They were looking for a good mixer to go with their Tennessee Whiskey and when they couldn't find one to their liking, they decided to make their own.

Thus the inspiration for Mountain Dew, the soft drink, not the moonshine. The Hartman Brothers along with Charles Gordon began to bottle their concoction in the Tri-Cities area of Eastern Tennessee. The original logo for the product actually featured the likeness of a hillbilly moonshiner along with the phrase, " will tickle your innards".

What is interesting to me is this, I have never known anyone to actually order a cocktail mixed with this stuff. In fact I think you would be hard pressed to find a bar that actually serves this product. Who knows after reading this you might have just found your favorite new cocktail.

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